Writing Contests, Grants & Awards

The Writing Contests, Grants & Awards database includes details about the creative writing contests—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, and more—that we’ve published in Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it. Ours is the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.

Publication by University of Iowa Press is given annually for an essay collection. Meghan Daum will judge. Submit a manuscript of 40,000 to 90,000 words with a $10 entry fee by December 10. Visit the...

A one-month residency, which includes a $3,000 honorarium, to live and work in Oxford, Mississippi, near the University of Mississippi campus, is given annually to a poet who is working on a manuscript....

A prize of $7,500 is given annually for a book of fiction published during the previous year by a woman who is a U.S. citizen. Publishers may submit four copies of a novel or collection of short fiction...

Two residencies, cosponsored by the Texas Institute of Letters, at a rural retreat west of Austin are given annually to writers who are native Texans, who have lived in Texas for at least three years, or...

An academic year in residence, which includes a stipend of at least $30,000, at the University of Wisconsin in Madison is given annually to up to six writers working on a first or second book of poetry...